A Conspiracy of Friends Chapter 8: A Designer with an Eye

A Conspiracy of Friends is the third novel in Alexander McCall Smith's
Corduroy Mansions series, exclusive to Telegraph.co.uk.

Photo: IAIN MCINTOSH

By Alexander McCall Smith

9:28AM BST 22 Sep 2010

Merle said nothing. It was not that she had failed to hear Eddie, who often mumbled, running his words together in the way of some speakers of Estuary English; she had heard his proposal perfectly well. Consequently this was not one of those embarrassing cases where the person to whom the question is popped has to say: ‘Sorry, I didn’t quite get that. Are you asking me to marry you?’ There have been many such cases, including some where the proposer, embarrassed by the incredulity to which his question has given rise, has replied: ‘No, of course not.’ And this has been followed by awkward silence, sometimes heralding the end of the relationship in question.

Eddie’s question was followed by silence because Merle was thinking. She was pleased that Eddie had asked her to marry him, as she had entertained thoughts of marriage from the age of eighteen onwards and had been waiting for a man to propose. None had, or not until now, and it was inconceivable that she would turn down this offer. And yet there was something within her that prompted her to caution. It was not that she had her doubts about Eddie in particular – he was, as far as she was concerned, almost perfect – it was just that she had recently heard a disturbing statistic about the brevity of marriages entered into without a period of reflection beforehand.

So when at last she answered – about five minutes after Eddie’s question had been posed – it was with a counter-proposal. ‘Let’s get engaged,’ she said. ‘That gives us a bit of time.’

‘Oh I know, Eddie. You’re really wonderful. It’s just that it’s best to wait a few months. Then we’ll really know.’

Eddie shrugged. ‘So we get engaged. OK, if that’s what you want. We get engaged, and then we get married. Suits me.’

Merle leaned forwards and planted a kiss on his cheek. ‘What about the ring?’

Eddie nodded vaguely. ‘Yeah, a ring.’

‘Shall we go and choose one?’

Again, Eddie shrugged. ‘Whatever.’

Merle had hoped for a more romantic response but it was not to materialise, and they moved on to the next subject without further discussion of the ring. This conversation had taken place in the middle of a wider discussion of what to do about the house on St Lucia. The marina and chandlery were doing well and needed no decisions taken; the house, though, required attention, or at least some view to be adopted as to its fate. Eddie had suggested turning it into a hotel, an idea Merle had originally greeted unenthusiastically but which she was now beginning to find more attractive.

‘A hotel’s the answer,’ said Eddie. ‘But we should keep a few rooms for ourselves – a flat at the back maybe, or in the grounds. Get somebody in to run it. A manager.’

Merle liked the sound of a manager. ‘A manager,’ she said, savouring the reassuring qualities of the word. ‘Yes. Like the man who looks after the marina. A manager would be a good idea.’

Eddie expanded upon this. ‘He can manage the place, you see.’

Merle nodded. ‘That would be good.’

‘Hire the staff. Pay the bills. That sort of stuff.’

‘Important,’ said Merle.

‘Yeah. And then we can check up that he’s managing right.’

‘We’d have to do that,’ agreed Merle. ‘You want a good manager.’

‘We’d get the best,’ said Eddie.

The management structure having been decided, they passed on to the issue of décor and ambience.

‘It should be classy,’ said Eddie.

‘Of course not.’

‘If it’s classy,’ Eddie went on, ‘then you get the right sort of people staying there. No rubbish.’

Already Eddie had an idea. ‘We need an angle,’ he said. ‘We need to get somebody to tell us what people are looking for, know what I mean? If we know what people are looking for, then . . .’

‘Then we can give it to them,’ supplied Merle.

‘Yeah. So we need to get a—’

Merle was thinking ahead. ‘A designer. I read an article in one of the mags about this guy who designs restaurants and hotels. It said he was the best there is. And he’s here in London, I think. We could ask him. I’ve still got the mag.’

She fetched the magazine – a bulky, glossily printed publication with advertisements for perfumes and fashion – and paged through it.

‘Do you like this?’ she said, holding up a picture of a large diamond ring. ‘Only joking!’

‘One thing at a time,’ muttered Eddie. ‘This designer guy . . .’

The article was located. It was an interview with a man called Cosmo Bartonette, described at the head of the page as London’s sharpest design eye. ‘I call myself a design eye rather than a designer,’ said Cosmo. ‘It sounds the same when you say it but the difference stresses the true nature of my calling. You have to have an eye for design.’

Merle read this out to Eddie. ‘You see?

‘Yeah,’ said Eddie. ‘Carry on.’

‘ “I start from the basic premise that there is nothing there,” continued Cosmo Bartonette. “I look at a space and then I subtract. I call this the cleansing process – rather like eating a trou normand before the meal begins, rather than halfway through. I cleanse my palate, so to speak. I exclude the items that the client already has – because they clutter the room. Then I allow an alternative to emerge – organically.

‘ “People have said to me,” he went on, “that the hallmark of my approach is to allow the space itself to do the work. And I think that’s a good way of putting it. It’s as if I interrogate the space and get it to tell me what it wants to have within it. Spaces are not inert. They breathe. They have their dreams. They have a destiny which their proportions, the materials they are made of, their positioning all point towards. I simply unlock it for them. I open a door that would otherwise be closed by the preconceptions of the owner, or the designer for that matter. And it’s extraordinary how many spaces give a shout of joy when this happens. Look! they exclaim. Look! This is what I want to be! This is me! C’est moi!”’

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